Here is my Perl and Python script to do some simple text processing from about 21 log files, each about 300 KB to 1 MB (maximum) x 5 times repeated (total of 125 files, due to the log repeated 5 times).
Python Code (code modified to use compiled re
and using re.I
)
#!/usr/bin/python import re import fileinput exists_re = re.compile(r'^(.*?) INFO.*Such a record already exists', re.I) location_re = re.compile(r'^AwbLocation (.*?) insert into', re.I) for line in fileinput.input(): fn = fileinput.filename() currline = line.rstrip() mprev = exists_re.search(currline) if(mprev): xlogtime = mprev.group(1) mcurr = location_re.search(currline) if(mcurr): print fn, xlogtime, mcurr.group(1)
Perl Code
#!/usr/bin/perl while (<>) { chomp; if (m/^(.*?) INFO.*Such a record already exists/i) { $xlogtime = $1; } if (m/^AwbLocation (.*?) insert into/i) { print "$ARGV $xlogtime $1\n"; } }
And, on my PC both code generates exactly the same result file of 10,790 lines. And, here is the timing done on Cygwin's Perl and Python implementations.
User@UserHP /cygdrive/d/tmp/Clipboard # time /tmp/scripts/python/afs/process_file.py *log* *log* *log* *log* *log* > summarypy.log real 0m8.185s user 0m8.018s sys 0m0.092s User@UserHP /cygdrive/d/tmp/Clipboard # time /tmp/scripts/python/afs/process_file.pl *log* *log* *log* *log* *log* > summarypl.log real 0m1.481s user 0m1.294s sys 0m0.124s
Originally, it took 10.2 seconds using Python and only 1.9 secs using Perl for this simple text processing.
(UPDATE) but, after the compiled re
version of Python, it now takes 8.2 seconds in Python and 1.5 seconds in Perl. Still Perl is much faster.
Is there a way to improve the speed of Python at all OR it is obvious that Perl will be the speedy one for simple text processing.
By the way this was not the only test I did for simple text processing... And, each different way I make the source code, always always Perl wins by a large margin. And, not once did Python performed better for simple m/regex/
match and print stuff.
Please do not suggest to use C, C++, Assembly, other flavours of Python, etc.
I am looking for a solution using Standard Python with its built-in modules compared against Standard Perl (not even using the modules). Boy, I wish to use Python for all my tasks due to its readability, but to give up speed, I don't think so.
So, please suggest how can the code be improved to have comparable results with Perl.
UPDATE: 2012-10-18
As other users suggested, Perl has its place and Python has its.
So, for this question, one can safely conclude that for simple regex match on each line for hundreds or thousands of text files and writing the results to a file (or printing to screen), Perl will always, always WIN in performance for this job. It as simple as that.
Please note that when I say Perl wins in performance... only standard Perl and Python is compared... not resorting to some obscure modules (obscure for a normal user like me) and also not calling C, C++, assembly libraries from Python or Perl. We don't have time to learn all these extra steps and installation for a simple text matching job.
So, Perl rocks for text processing and regex.
Python has its place to rock in other places.
Update 2013-05-29: An excellent article that does similar comparison is here. Perl again wins for simple text matching... And for more details, read the article.
Comparing the speedPerl is about 8 times faster than Python.
Perl is known for its powerful regex and string comparison operations as it is influenced by sed and awk like powerful UNIX tools. In the case of regex and string operations like substitution, matching, replacement, Perl outperforms python which would take a few lines of code to achieve the same.
Answer: Python and Perl are high-level programming languages that were invented to serve different purposes. Perl was developed by Larry Wall as a Unix-based scripting language for making reports easily. Whereas Python was developed to offer code readability to its users for writing small and large programs.
Perl was invented by Larry Wall in 1987 while Python by Guido van Rossum in 1989.
This is exactly the sort of stuff that Perl was designed to do, so it doesn't surprise me that it's faster.
One easy optimization in your Python code would be to precompile those regexes, so they aren't getting recompiled each time.
exists_re = re.compile(r'^(.*?) INFO.*Such a record already exists') location_re = re.compile(r'^AwbLocation (.*?) insert into')
And then in your loop:
mprev = exists_re.search(currline)
and
mcurr = location_re.search(currline)
That by itself won't magically bring your Python script in line with your Perl script, but repeatedly calling re in a loop without compiling first is bad practice in Python.
Hypothesis: Perl spends less time backtracking in lines that don't match due to optimisations it has that Python doesn't.
What do you get by replacing
^(.*?) INFO.*Such a record already exists
with
^((?:(?! INFO).)*?) INFO.*Such a record already
or
^(?>(.*?) INFO).*Such a record already exists
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With